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The Dirty Jobs of IT
Posted by
Zonk
on Mon Mar 10, 2008 05:06 PM
from the we-care-a-lot dept.
from the we-care-a-lot dept.
dantwood writes "In an Infoworld article, Dan Tynan writes about the '7 Dirtiest Jobs' in IT. Number three? Enterprise espionage engineer (black ops). 'Seeking slippery individuals comfortable with lying, cheating, stealing, breaking, and entering for penetration testing of enterprise networks. Requirements include familiarity with hacking, malware, and forgery; must be able to plausibly impersonate a pest control specialist or a fire marshal. Please submit rap sheet along with resume.'" Paging Mike Rowe, Mike Rowe to the IT desk.
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Developers: Why COBOL Could Come Back 405 comments
snydeq writes "Sure 'legacy systems archaeologist' ranks as one of the 7 dirtiest jobs in IT, but COBOL skills might see a scant revival in the wake of California's high-profile pay-cut debacle. After all, as Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister points out, new code may in fact be more expensive than old code. According to an IDC survey, code complexity is on the rise. And it's not the applications that are growing more complex, but the technologies themselves. 'Multicore processing, SOA, and Web 2.0 all contribute to rising software development costs,' which include $5 million to $22 million spent on fixing defects per company per year. Do the math, and California's proposed $177 million nine-year modernization project cost will double, McAllister writes. Perhaps numbers like those won't deter modernization efforts, but the estimated 90,000 coders still versed in COBOL may find themselves in high demand teaching new dogs old tricks."
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Even Dirtier IT Jobs 175 comments
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Dan Tynan offers up 7 'even dirtier IT jobs' in a follow-up of last year's 7 dirtiest jobs in IT. Number four? Zombie console monkey.
'Wanted: Individuals with low self-esteem and high boredom threshold willing to spend long hours poring over server logs and watching blinking lights on a network console.'"
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Link covers several pages (Score:5, Informative)
A script has tried to read private data (Score:2, Offtopic)
Uhm... (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like fun.
Re:Uhm... (Score:5, Funny)
Nothing gives you plausible deniability for your data heists like being paid to try stealing it in the first place...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And I actually think that a really dirty IT job is when management enforces the implementation of a hack that may not only be insecure but also possibly illegal.
Mike Rowe? (Score:5, Funny)
Jus' wonderin'...
Parent
On TV? (Score:3, Funny)
Mike Rowe! (Score:2, Funny)
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/19/133233&tid=109 [slashdot.org]
Now that's a dirty job.
Re:Mike Rowe! (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
What about the guy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What about the guy (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about the guy (Score:5, Funny)
I, for one, welcome our new dirty, spelling-challenged, sensationalizing user-submitted story-posting editor overlords!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
But yeah, those multiple page things annoy me too.
qz
Depends what you mean by "dirty" (Score:3, Insightful)
Left out ecommerce (Score:5, Interesting)
Left out Multi-Level Marketing (Score:5, Insightful)
The company makes multi-millions, and I was personally in charge of the systems that calculates, tallies, and print out "reward" cheques every month. I had to be intimately familiar with all the details and clauses and sub-clauses and secret definitions of obvious words like "one week" or heck even what "50" means. I knew first hand that what our marketing people said was very different from what our sales people said, which is different from when people call our customer service, and which in turn is many miles away from how the system actually works.
They never lie, because you get sued when you lie.
But ever since, I have been convinced that it is dirtier to speak in half-truths and equivocations than out-right lies.
[confession]
I was young and dismissed my disgust at the company as my being too "picky" about jobs. I convined myself to tough it out. Eventually I found out the company was stealing from ME, and only then did I quit. So I already got what I deserved. [/confession]
sorry about posting as AC, but I have a rather unique handle I've been using for quite a few years.
Parent
Again with the Wikipedia!! (Score:5, Insightful)
What is the point of linking to the Dirty Jobs entry on Wikipedia? What's wrong with the actual Discovery Channel site [discovery.com] ??
Re:Again with the Wikipedia!! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Again with the Wikipedia!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I looked at your link [discovery.com] and I see some ads and a big Flash thingy. (I'm using FlashBlock [mozdev.org] so I have to click to view Flash. Wonderful!) If I load the Flash, I see some fancily designed animated cruft with a bunch of buttons that may or may not lead to actual information. Much of text is at slightly random skewed angles, and there's no obvious place to find basic facts.
When I look a the Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org], on the other hand, I see no ads, no Flash, and some nicely formatted text, written to give quick answers, laid out in tidy sections, all using a standard format that I'm familiar with from a bunch of previous visits.
Other than that, no reason.
Parent
Re:Again with the Wikipedia!! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, my point is that Wikipedia is easier to get information out of. That's because they understand that fancy design reduces utility [useit.com]. Further, their only reason for existence is to provide answers, whereas the Discovery Channel has different purposes, like promoting their show, reinforcing the fan base, and selling my attention to advertisers.
And suggesting that it's somehow more efficient to become familiar with every primary-source site on the web rather than just one? You can't expect to be taken seriously with statements like that, can you?
it is silly to use Wikipedia when there are better/more direct sources. Basic critical thinking skills will allow you to see that.
Basic critical thinking skills? Yes, please use them before posting. It will save us all some time.
More direct sources are very rarely better for a quick overview, which is why I have shelves of dictionaries, almanacs, concordances, indexes, encyclopedias, guides, maps, analyses, abstracts, and literature surveys. I also have plenty of primary sources, and go to them when needed. But the whole point of an encyclopedia, on-line or off-, is to make basic info more conveniently available than primary sources. Which is what 99% of people want as a starting point. If you don't, fine. Post your little link and move along.
Parent
Re:Again with the Wikipedia!! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
dirty job? (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
And hope your next employer doesn't hear about what you did...
Re:dirty job? (Score:4, Informative)
The company that you're breaking into hired your firm to test their security.
Parent
Enterprise espionage engineer? (Score:2)
Finally (Score:4, Funny)
Dirty IT job No. 7: Legacy systems archaeologist WANTED: INDIVIDUALS FAMILIAR WITH 3270
#7 seems pretty sweet (Score:5, Insightful)
Servicing equipment neglected for years (Score:3, Insightful)
Risking your life to test security (Score:5, Interesting)
My teacher stayed in a nearby motel and hacked in over the telephone, but a military officer with expertise in security parachuted into the base at night - it's a big base, with lots of wide open space.
He started breaking into computer rooms. Interestingly, he was detected but not caught. My teacher intercepted emails from the base staff warning that an intruder had been seen in the area.
Eventually they went public, and submitted a report to the staff as to how they could improve security.
They emphasized that this sort of thing is meant to help, and not to cost anyone their jobs.
Re:Risking your life to test security (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Number 8 BSA guy (Score:2)
#0 dirtiest IT job (Score:5, Funny)
Re:#0 dirtiest IT job (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
The real list (Score:5, Funny)
2) Keyboard cleaner (cheetos and pepsi and genetic splatter, oh my!)
3) Floating point wrangler
4) Monochrome wire detangler
5) Witnessing <body bgcolor="#FFFF00">
6) rpm dependency arbitrator
7) "Cowboy Neal option" writer
I don't think so... (Score:5, Insightful)
Having done both, I completely disagree. In fact, I have yet to meet a help desk zombie who hasn't dreamed of becoming an on-site reboot specialist. It doesn't take long for a help desk zombie to wish they could simply get the person on the other end of the phone to do what they tell them and nothing else, or even just understand what they have told them. Getting to be an on-site reboot specialist allows one to work directly on a machine without the person who has no idea playing a literal game of telephone with your instructions to mess things up. In addition, on-site rebooters usually get paid more for doing less and can get rid of angry customers at least for a time by telling them to go get coffee. The only real exception I've seen to this would be the Graveyard Support Vampire who have other priorities than more money or getting the job done ASAP to meet quota.
Re:I don't think so... (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the first thing that any IT support person needs to know is that "USERS LIE". With people on the other end of the phone, they are certain there is some secret "fixed" button and if they stall and are a pain long enough, you'll tell them where it is so they make stuff up in an effort to speed things along. Sometimes, you even do tell them where the "fixed" button is (for their problem anyway) and they'll keep on lying because they don't recognise it as being the instructions for pushing the "fixed" button. They may not even know they are lying, but they still lie. Many times, they'll try and describe what is happening, and do so in a way that either offers no information or wrong information who actually knows what the terms they are using actually mean. Then there are the people who simply call the help desk but are still trying to solve the problem on their own. The number of times I've told people to click one button or open a window and not to do anything else, and could hear frantic typing over the phone drives is non-trivial. When I repeat "do not do anything" they'll tell me they aren't. Then when I ask them to do something like read the error message that appears or follow a set of steps that has to be done in order without doing anything else, they tell me to hold on and reboot the machine to return to the state I told them to get in. This in one of the main reasons help desk zombies want to get their hands on the machine, users lie and when the person who is actually trying to fix the machine can't see the machine and must rely upon a lier to tell them what is going in, it makes things really hard.
On the other side of things, the on-site reboot specialists have to deal with the users who give them no information and still expect results.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
#2 isn't dirty in the least (Score:5, Insightful)
You are always in demand, unlike several other IT fields
Pays well
Stable work
Stable code.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I really didn't think I was special... (Score:4, Funny)
No, I haven't had #1, but the wet end of a paper making machine is very close. It's amazing what will grow in warm pulp, if you leave it there a while. And how your shoes literally fall apart when you walk through the stuff they use to clean it off. Literally. In minutes. Leather is no match for DuStrip.
Cat Herder is the worst of them. Being a rebootnik isn't quite as much fun as a third-party field tech, driving back and forto from the airport 3 miles away in a driving snowstorm to get *another* part to make that ^&*) Alpha server run again, so people can rent porn. Yeah.
Forensics Responder (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Chemical Plant (Score:4, Interesting)
Who are they talking about? (Score:5, Funny)
Is that you, Steve?
Rap sheet??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Something wrong with that (Score:5, Informative)
WANTED: INDIVIDUALS FAMILIAR WITH 3270, VAX/VMS, COBOL, AS/400, AND OTHER LEGACY SYSTEMS
I have to disagree: It may not be the very best idea to try to connect AS/400 applications to webbrowsers, but an AS/400 is certainly NOT a legacy system. The system architecture of the AS/400 is actually much more modern than that of most other systems. Do you know any other system with a persistent single-level-storage, that continues working exactly where it stopped before the power was lost, after you boot it up again - I mean, it does not RESTART processes, it CONTINUES them. Or do you know another system, where you can plug in a completely different main processor, just recompile the OS kernel, and every application on the system will be AUTOMATICALLY ported to the new processor architecture upon first start - as if they were Java programs? Ever heard of the "technology independent machine interface" (TIMI)?
Reimplementing your old applications on an AS/400 is much LESS of a risk than trying to migrate those applications to so-called modern systems like PC-servers, because an AS/400 is orders of magnitudes more secure (you DO know it has hardware-supported pointer protection, don't you?) and more realiable than a PC-server.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Help Desk" is customer service (Score:4, Insightful)
You're right, Help Desk is a horrible place to expect qualified techies to hang out. It's more of a litmus test than anything else. If you've got some level of skill, you advance out of the help desk and into something useful. If you suck...well...at least you're unlikely to be fired.
Every place I've worked that had a decent sized IT department had two types of people; Help Desk / Operators that had been there 10+ years, and help desk staff that got promoted or moved on within six months.
Parent